


Snapshots of Us

by innerslytherin



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-04
Updated: 2010-07-04
Packaged: 2017-10-10 09:35:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innerslytherin/pseuds/innerslytherin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hotch doesn't realize JJ is single again.  JJ is doing everything she can to clue him in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Snapshots of Us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kosmickway](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=kosmickway).



> Written expressly for [](http://kosmickway.livejournal.com/profile)[**kosmickway**](http://kosmickway.livejournal.com/), who was the second highest bidder on my [](http://community.livejournal.com/help_haiti/profile)[**help_haiti**](http://community.livejournal.com/help_haiti/) auction.  The first line is from "Santa Monica" by Theory of a Deadman. Thank you to [](http://slash-girl.livejournal.com/profile)[**slash_girl**](http://slash-girl.livejournal.com/) for that line, and to [](http://severity-softly.livejournal.com/profile)[**severity_softly**](http://severity-softly.livejournal.com/) for the beta.

  
I remember the day you told me it was over.  Oddly enough, that was the day everything really started.  
   
I hadn't expected anything unusual that Friday afternoon, but as I walked to my car in the lot, I saw you standing beside your smoking Chevy with a look of pure despair on your beautiful face.  It's not an expression any of us see on your face often, so I knew something awful had happened.  
   
As I dropped my briefcase and hurried to your side, you saw me coming.  First you put up a hand as if to ward me off, but I'm a stubborn man and you still know me better than anyone but Dave.  So you gave me a smile of surrender, a sheepish smile.  
   
"I knew it was only a matter of time," you said, gesturing to the car.  
   
"Where are you headed?" I said.  Instantly, automatically.  
   
It always drove Haley crazy the way I would drop anything for my team.  And though I've never been as close with Prentiss or Garcia, I've always dropped anything for them simply because I knew I would for you.  I suppose it was my way of assuring myself that what I felt for you wasn't inappropriate.  Despite that, I've known for a long time just how inappropriate my feelings are.  
   
"Oh, Hotch, don't be silly.  I know I'm out of your way.  I'll call a cab."  You pushed your hair back behind one ear.  It made me notice that you were growing it out, and I was glad.  
   
"Jack's at his grandparents' house for the weekend," I told you.  "I've got nothing better to do than chauffeur for you and Henry."  
   
I saw your moment of indecision, but you smiled anyway and nodded.  Your eyes looked so big and blue.  You let me carry your car seat and open the car door for you, and I have to confess that I felt a thrill of pleasure that you still seem to appreciate that I'm a Southern gentleman at heart.  
   
We picked up Henry from his daycare, and even though he ran to you first, he let me carry him out to the car.  I felt as though I were part of something precious.  I told myself not to indulge the notion.  I would never want to destroy the happiness you had with Will.  
   
We have always been close, you and I, but I had never allowed myself to dwell on my feelings as I did that afternoon.  Henry was babbling from the backseat.  When you found the University of Georgia baseball cap I wear during my infrequent rounds of golf with Dave, you teased me about it and put it on.  
   
I loved the sight of you in my hat.  
   
***  
   
When we got to your house, you invited me in.  I didn't want to impose, but you refused to accept no for an answer.  So I sat on the couch with Henry while you ran upstairs to change your clothes.  When you came back you were wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, ratty tennis shoes, and my baseball cap.  I couldn't ask for it back, but I also couldn't imagine how kind, easy-going Will would react to that sight.  
   
Did you know how that was eating at me?  I had loved you in honorable silence for so long, never allowing myself to cross any lines, even in thought.  From those last few days of my marriage, when Haley only looked at me and found me wanting, right up to the moment you told us you were pregnant, I had loved you but held my tongue, biding my time.  I had told myself it was loneliness, mere infatuation, only a big-brother sort of affection.  I knew I could never speak to you of my feelings, and yet when I learned you had hidden from me how serious you were about Will, the pregnancy...a part of my heart had closed off that night in New York.  
   
You aren't a profiler, but I'm convinced you somehow knew all these secrets of mine.  It was cruel of you to let me suffer those agonies of guilt over coveting another man's...girlfriend, at least.  But I deserved it.  
   
Something in my face made you take pity on me finally.  Your expression softened and you came over to sit on the couch beside me.  
   
"Oh, Aaron," you said, and you rested a hand on my arm.  "Will is gone."

***  
   
It all came out over dinner--mac and cheese and peas with juice for Henry and Coke for us.  You and Will had tried, but he missed New Orleans and you couldn't love him the way you felt he deserved.  You had parted amicably, still working out custody so Henry could see his father often.  You both agreed that Henry needed his father in his life; you just also wanted both of you to be happy.  
   
We didn't touch again all night, though I ached to take you in my arms.  We talked long after Henry went to bed, but we didn't speak directly of my feelings for you.  
   
But I called you Jenny for the first time and your smile could have rivaled the sun.  
   
   
**JJ**  
   
I couldn't believe how long I hinted without your picking up on the fact that I was a free woman.  And you call yourself a profiler.  
   
Of course I know that isn't fair.  I had noticed the care you took of me, the warmth and appreciation you always showed me; but it wasn't until after Will packed his bags and returned to New Orleans that I felt the first flush of heat go through me at the way you looked.  I'd always known you were an attractive man, but I'd never _felt_ it that way before.  
   
So that was when I began to look.  And after a while I realized you seemed to be looking back.  I know I'm pretty, but you've never treated me like just a pretty face.  From you I got the sort of treatment I was used to from my soccer coaches, that if I worked hard, I would be fine.  I'd always liked that about you.  
   
Suddenly I realized that you _knew_ I was pretty, even if you didn't show it.  You're such a gentleman, so honorable and courteous, I was head over heels before I knew it, but I was also at a complete loss.  I hadn't told anyone but Emily that Will and I had split up.  I was afraid to tell her about my feelings for you.  I love Emily, but sometimes she's too concerned with propriety.  
   
So I did nothing, even when Spence cornered me by the coffeemaker and delivered a three-minute lecture on the medieval concept of courtly love.  At the end he said, "But Jayj, courtly love doesn't provide a father-figure for your son or warm a lonely bed."  
   
I confess, I blushed to hear Spencer Reid speak so frankly about my sex life, but I realized that if he saw it, I had to do something.  And two weeks later my car obliged by dying.  
   
***  
   
I loved how we both knew what was happening from that night on...and yet neither of us needed to speak of it.  We introduced Jack and Henry, which we'd meant to do for a year, and took them for ice cream and to the petting zoo.  Jack liked holding Henry as long as one of us took him when he cried.  
   
Then, with your sister-in-law's blessing, we left the children with her one night and went for a real date.  It was dinner and a movie at the mall, and after the movie we happened on a photo booth.  
   
I dragged you into the booth and you were actually laughing.  It felt wonderful to make you laugh like that.  And then, after the second picture, your arm slid around my waist.  I turned to look at you, and your lips touched mine. 

***

There's a picture frame over the fireplace that holds my favorite picture from our wedding.  You and I are holding Henry between us, Jack standing in front of us in his little ring-bearer's tuxedo.  Beside us is our family--the BAU team.

Tucked into the corner of that frame is the strip of pictures from that night in the photo booth. They are the two happiest days of my life.  



End file.
